100 TPC Tech Manual Page 5 – Preserving Your Archive

Introduction | Chronicling Your Event | Webcasting Your Event | Recording Your Event | Preserving Your Archive

 

Part V: Preserving Your Archive

When preparing your video recordings for archiving, you need to keep two different audiences in mind. First, the Web-surfer, who, over the next few years, will be viewing the 100 Thousand Poets for Change events for their personal enjoyment and edification. Second, the academic historian, who will be viewing these events in the LOCKSS archive maintained at UC Stanford. Both audiences will ideally have a quality recording, but for the former audience, we must balance quality for accessibility. Fortunately, sites like YouTube and Vimeo make accessibility easy.

Both YouTube and Vimeo’s free service have limits on how much you can upload. YouTube limits each video to ten minutes in length. Most home video cameras will accommodate this; if you stop recording every nine minutes, then re-start, the camera will chop your recording into nine-minute segments, allowing you to upload the segments as separate YouTube files. If that fails for some reason, you can chop your videos into segments using video editing software. iMovie, the free editing software for the Mac, and Windows Live Movie Maker, the free editing software for Windows, are both capable of this simple task.

If you’d like your event to be available in an uninterrupted format, you’ll want to use Vimeo. Vimeo’s free service allows you to upload up to 500 megabytes a week, and no more than one high-definition file a week. If you have a low-quality recording of your event, it might be under 500 megabytes in its entirety. If not, you can purchase Vimeo Plus for 59.95USD per year or 9.95USD per month. Vimeo Plus allows you to upload 5 gigabytes a week, with no further restrictions on high-definition files. The files will remain available for downloading only as long as you are a Vimeo Plus member, but they will remain available for viewing indefinitely. Thus, you can upload your entire event to Vimeo for less than $10, and expect it to stay available on the web for a number of years.

To upload videos to YouTube:

  1. Go to http://www.youtube.com/. Since YouTube has been purchased by Google, you might find that you have a YouTube account without having created one, as a result of having a Google account. If not, click “Create Account” and set up your YouTube account.
  2. Click “Upload” in the upper-right section of the screen.
  3. Click the yellow “Upload Video” button. Find your first film segment on your hard drive.
  4. You can now set a Title and Description for your video. You can also set “tags,” which are search terms to assist people in finding your video. Example tags are “poetry,” “100 Thousand Poets for Change,” and the names of the poets in your video.
  5. You can also set your video’s license to the “Standard YouTube License” or a Creative Commons license, allowing people to use your video in remixing. See http://www.creativecommons.org/ for more information about Creative Commons licensing.
  6. Under “Sharing Options,” you’ll be given an URL and embedding code. Don’t worry about the embedding code if you’re unfamiliar with it; Facebook and other social networks now embed automatically without it. The URL, on the other hand, should be distributed widely, especially on the comments stream of your city’s page at 100TPC.org, as detailed here.
  7. Click “save changes.”

The process is easy, but a bit slow, as YouTube must upload and process each of your videos. Grab a book before you start.

To upload videos to Vimeo:

  1. Go to http://www.vimeo.com/. Click “Sign up for Vimeo” in the upper-right.
  2. You’ll be presented with an option to choose between Vimeo Basic and Vimeo Plus. If you choose Vimeo Plus, you’ll be taken to a shopping cart program which will ask for your credit card information. Either way, select a user name, password, and e-mail to sign up.
  3. You will receive a confirmation e-mail; you’ll have to click it before uploading work to Vimeo.
  4. Go to http://vimeo.com/upload.
  5. Click “Choose a file to upload.” Select your video file on your hard drive. The upload will begin.
  6. You can now set a Title and Description for your video. You can also set “tags,” which are search terms to assist people in finding your video. Example tags are “poetry,” “100 Thousand Poets for Change,” and the names of the poets in your video.
  7. On the left-hand side of the page, click “Credits.” If the other people involved in your event have Vimeo accounts, you can use this screen to link this video to their accounts, for greater visibility.
  8. On the left-hand side of the page, click “License.” Here, you can choose a variety of Creative Commons licenses, allowing people to use your video in remixing. See http://www.creativecommons.org/ for more information about Creative Commons licensing.
  9. On the left-hand side of the page, click “Custom URL.” This section will allow you to give your video a specific URL, such as http://www.vimeo.com/Brilliant-Poet/100-Thousand-Poets-for-Change-Pleasantville-Part-1. Distribute that URL widely, especially on the comments stream of your city’s page at 100TPC.org, as detailed here.
  10. Click “save changes.”

The process is easy, but a bit slow, as Vimeo must upload and process each of your videos. Grab a book before you start.

Using YouTube and Vimeo, you’ll be able to create a longstanding record of your event, available to every web surfer. Now it’s time to deliver your videos to Michael Rothenberg at Big Bridge, so that he can prepare them for permanent archival by LOCKSS.

Big Bridge cannot permanently store your video files on its server, nor can it accommodate web surfers looking for your videos, but it will host your videos temporarily, so that LOCKSS can find them. After LOCKSS archives your videos, they will be deleted from the Big Bridge server. They should be in AVI format, which is the format that most digital cameras use, or MOV (QuickTime) format, a simple, broadly compatible format created by Apple. If they are in some other format, you’ll want to use a conversion program such as Mobile Media Converter before delivering them.

  1. Download Mobile Media Converter at http://www.miksoft.net/mobileMediaConverterDown.htm. This page is cluttered with ads, so be sure that you’re downloading Mobile Media Converter for your system, not following a link to some commercial program.
  2. Run the program.
  3. Drag your files into the program’s main window.
  4. Select .AVI (for higher quality) or QuickTime video (for broader compatibility) in the “Conversion to…” box. The program will generate a new file, an .avi or .mov version of your existing video file.

If necessary, Michael can receive your files on CD-ROM or flash drive. Mail them to:
Michael Rothenberg
PO Box 870
Guerneville, CA 95446

However, you will save money and he will save time if you send them over the Internet via FTP.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a way to deliver large files using the Internet that pre-dates the World Wide Web. It is not designed to be used within a web browser; instead it is best accessed through a separate program, such as FileZilla, a free program available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you’ve only been using the internet since the development of the world wide web, FTP might look quite foreign to you. But FileZilla is not hard to use, and is much faster than transferring files over the web. Just follow these steps:

  1. Go to http://www.filezilla-project.org/
  2. Click “Download FileZilla client.” Pick your platform (Windows, Mac, or Linux) download the program, and install it.
  3. Run FileZilla.
  4. Across the top of the screen, you’ll see four information fields you can fill out: “Host,” “Username,” “Password,” and “Port.” You’ll want to fill out the first three:
  5. Host: ftp.bigbridge.org
    Username: To Be Determined
    Password: To Be Determined 

    Then click “Quickconnect” to connect to Big Bridge‘s file server.

  6. At this point, you’ll have:
    1. a list of the directories on your hard drive in the upper-left
    2. a list of files in the current directory on your hard drive in the lower-left
    3. a list of directories that you can access at Big Bridge on the upper-right (this area will be limited, so that no one accidentally deletes anything important, and you don’t need to mess with it)
    4. a list of files in the current directory on the Big Bridge server in the lower-right. These are simply videos that other event organizers have uploaded. You’re adding to them, but don’t need to mess with the ones that are already there.
  7. Use the directory tree in the upper-left to find the folder in which your video files are stored. Select it. Your video files will now appear in the lower-left window.
  8. Drag your video files from the lower-left pane to the lower-right. They will now copy from your hard drive to the Big Bridge server. This will take some time; the very bottom window will monitor the progress of the transfer.
  9. Drop Michael a line at walterblue@bigbridge.org to confirm that your videos transferred correctly.

That’s it! At this point, you’re equipped to make sure that your event is properly remembered as the historical event it is. Hopefully, you’ve also learned a few things that will help you record your future events as well. Again, I am not prepared to offer technical support on these matters, but if parts of this document are unclear, inaccurate, or difficult for the average computer user, please do post to the 100 TPC Organization and Communication Hub Facebook group, either by using Facebook or writing to 100TPCHub@groups.facebook.com and I will amend this document.